Foresight Nanotech Institute Weekly News Digest: July 25, 2007

Top Nano News of the Week

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease with high mortality rates and few treatment options. Liposomes armed with a combination of molecular tools for killing tumor cells have been presented as a new nanomedical approach to treating pancreatic tumors. The therapy involves intravenous injections of liposomes carrying a gene known to kill cancer cells, a promoter, and other molecules involved in gene expression. The treatment effectively destroyed pancreatic tumors in mice, in pre-clinical tests, while leaving healthy tissues intact.

… The next step in development of this treatment is FDA approval for a full clinical trial.

Nanotechnology that's Good For People

Foresight note: Not only does this work establish a general method for building complex nanoparticles for cancer therapy, but several functions (two imaging and one targeting) are incorporated into one nanoparticle.

By taking advantage of the full range of ways in which molecules can interact with and bind to one another, a team of investigators at the Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence has created nanoparticles that assemble themselves layer by layer. These nanoparticles, which contain two different types of imaging agents, also contain a peptide coating that targets tumor cells.

…the nanoparticles were capable of distinguishing between human colon cancer cells and normal cells… The investigators were able to monitor nanoparticle uptake by both fluorescent imaging and MRI.

Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. "The process is simple," said lead researcher and author Somenath Mitra, PhD, professor and acting chair of NJIT's Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. "Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations."

Foresight note: These extensive computer simulations point toward the eventual use of graphene instead of copper interconnects, and possibly also instead of silicon semiconductors, in future nanoelectronics.

A key discovery at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could help advance the role of graphene as a possible heir to copper and silicon in nanoelectronics.

Saroj Nayak, an associate professor in Rensselaer's Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy, has worked with graduate student Philip Shemella and others for two years to determine how graphene's extremely efficient conductive properties can be exploited for use in nanoelectronics. After running dozens of robust computer simulations, the group has demonstrated for the first time that the length, as well as the width, of graphene directly impacts the material's conduction properties.

Now, for the first time, the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems will describe the R&D pathways and products resulting from this ultimate technological revolution. Join us as we explore the power of advanced "bottom-up" nanotechnology in this 14th Foresight Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology.

Do you believe that nanotechnology will give society the ability to tackle the hard challenges facing humanity? What's your priority for nanotechnology: cancer treatments and longevity therapies, sustainable energy, clean water, a restored environment, space development, or "zero waste" manufacturing? Or perhaps there are potential nanotech scenarios you would like to prevent.

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Nanotech Research

Foresight note: This research may lead to less expensive ways to make nanostructures called superlattices that could find use in various nanodevices because of their unique optical and electronic properties.

Superlatticed or "striped" nanorods—crystalline materials only a few molecules in thickness and made up of two or more semiconductors—are highly valued for their potential to serve in a variety of nanodevices, including transistors, biochemical sensors and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Until now the potential of superlatticed nanorods has been limited by the relatively expensive and exacting process required to make them. That paradigm may be shifting.

A team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley, has found a way to make striped nanorods in a colloid—a suspension of particles in solution. Previously, striped nanorods were made through epitaxial processes, in which the rods were attached to or embedded within a solid medium.

Toward Productive Nanosystems

Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have taken a step toward simplifying the creation of nanostructures by identifying the first inorganic material to phase separate with near-perfect order at the nanometer scale. The finding provides an atomically tuneable nanocomposite "workbench" that is cheap and easy to produce and provides a super-lattice foundation potentially suitable for building nanostructures.

…By varying the amount of lithium and neodymium, two ingredients in the ceramic powder, engineers controlled the length and spacing of the alternating phases, thereby tuning the workbench upon which nanodevices could be built.

"This study represents great potential for the use of standard ceramic processing methods for nanotechnology," said Peter K. Davies, chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn. "The phase separation occurs spontaneously, providing two phases whose dimensions both extend into the nanometer scale. This unique feature could lead to its application as a template for the assembly of nanostructures or molecular monolayers."

Editor's Pick

We continue our tradition of citing a special story that strikes the Editor as especially cool, but which doesn't fit within the usual editorial categories of the News Digest.

I found it especially cool that these engineers were able to mimic two very different biological adaptations and combine them into one novel nanostructured material that can do what neither of the originals can.

Geckos are remarkable in their ability to scurry up vertical surfaces and even move along upside down… But put those feet underwater, and their ability to stick is dramatically reduced.

Water is an enemy of adhesives, which typically do not work well in wet environments—think of how long a bandage on your finger lasts. Now two Northwestern University biomedical engineers have successfully married the gecko's adhesive ability with that of an animal well known for its sticking power underwater: the mussel.

Combining the important elements of gecko and mussel adhesion, the new adhesive material, called "geckel," functions like a sticky note and exhibits strong yet reversible adhesion in both air and water. The findings… could lead to applications in medical, industrial, consumer and military settings…

Being from Europe, the paper cites the precautionary principle, but goes further by listing some areas which may be too risky or unethical or rights-violating for even the precautionary principle to do the job. Specifically these are:

"E.g.: Free release of solid insoluble nanoparticles into the environment (without the knowledge of the impacts); Remote control of human behaviour; Physical alteration or enhancement of the human brain or of the heritable genetic code for non therapeutic purposes; Human enhancement with the sole purpose to increase achievements in competitive sports; Non-therapeutic enhancement of human capabilities that create a risk of dependence, or are irreversible or are beyond the range of normal human capabilities."

It seems to me that building a campfire violates the first point, drinking coffee violates the third, and LASIK eye surgery violates the last one. My point here is that perhaps we don't want to try to define what are "normal human capabilities" and make anything better be illegal. Certainly it's appalling to imagine the U.S. Congress or U.S. Supreme Court trying to do this.

Of course, it is up to Europeans to decide what to do inside the EU. But their Code of Conduct is likely to be proposed as a model elsewhere.

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Dr. James Lewis, Research Analyst at Foresight Nanotech Institute, is the editor of the Foresight Nanotech Institute Weekly News Digest. If you would like to submit a news item or contact him with comments about the News Digest, please send an email to editor@foresight.org